How to Measure SEO Performance in 2023

Guest
29th September 2022

Learn how to measure your SEO performance and demonstrate your impact on the company.

SEO is one of the most crucial parts of a digital marketing strategy. 

Organic searches have been increasing, contributing to roughly 53% of web traffic. Since the number is significant, we can’t take SEO for granted. 

With an efficient SEO strategy, you’ll be able to boost your revenue.

To increase your revenue faster, making your SEO optimal is vital. 

However, the biggest challenge is how you will measure SEO performance.

The shortest answer is to use SEO KPIs. It will allow you to measure the success of your SEO strategy.

Creating an SEO strategy needs time, effort, and money.

Since you’ve invested much in it, you want to ensure its success. 

Using the KPIs, you can pinpoint which areas need adjustments and changes. If you find a particular element to improve, you can deal with it before it gets worse.

SEO KPIs are perfect elements to be included in your company’s risk management process. If you see that a certain strategy doesn’t work, change it to save funds from pushing the same one.

There are many metrics to track. 

Many people will be confused if they are unsure which ones are critical. 

This article will cover what KPIs are and which SEO KPIs you should monitor to help you measure your SEO performance in 2023.

Pro Tip

Ruler Analytics can help make your SEO and marketing reporting easier. We provide marketers with the data they need to connect their marketing activities to closed revenue and help them track important metrics like ROI, LTV and revenue by source.

Learn more on how to measure your marketing with Ruler


What are KPIs in SEO?

KPIs are the elements that allow you to see how your SEO strategy behaves. 

You’ll be able to monitor its success or its shortcomings. You can create an action plan to solve the issue and turn the challenges into success.

Related: Simple guide to KPIs for sales and marketing

The indicators will show you the data regarding your audience’s interaction with your content. It’ll also allow you to monitor your website’s health. This helps you maintain a quality website for your audience.

You can think of KPIs as evaluation, performance, and control to make them easier to understand.


What are the main SEO KPIs to track?

Below are the KPIs you should track to measure your SEO performance. You can monitor them using various tools, such as Google Analytics. The KPIs include:


1. Engagement time

This tracks the amount of time a user spends on your web pages. You can do this as a whole or for multiple website pages. 

You’ll learn which content is interesting for your audience. They usually use the search function and check for the content related to their searches.

They’ll spend more time on the page if the content is engaging. On the other hand, if your website doesn’t answer their questions, they’d leave immediately.

Aside from the content, making your website user-friendly is an essential factor. If they see your website is easy to navigate, they will stay longer and find more related content.

2. Search visibility

Visibility of the search engine is one of the main objectives of an SEO strategy. So, monitoring your website’s visibility can help you position your website on the results page. 

This metric also has the different parts of the SERP. This includes SERP elements of your brand in social media as it creates engagement.

When you use this metric, you can determine how well your website is in terms of visibility. Being visible allows you to become more engaged with your audience.

However, you must ensure that they have an excellent user experience, aside from compelling content.

3. Click-through rate (CTR)

SEO is an organic way to lead traffic to your website. So, CTR from SEO allows you to identify the number of people visiting your content using SERP.

Users identify whether your content is relevant to their searches through your content’s snippets. 

Your organic CTR plays a considerable role in your website’s visibility. It also contributes to the snippet and clicks of the people.

A snippet is a preview of your content. This will show what users can expect when they enter the page. If they find the snippet interesting or could help them in their queries, they’d contribute to your CTR.

4. Organic traffic

SEO’s goal is to help you achieve traffic using incredible SERP placements. 

The higher your SERP ranking, the more traffic you’ll get. Since this traffic is organic, you don’t need to include the ones you get from paid ads or search engine marketing.

Monitoring the organic traffic allows you to determine the traffic on your website. It’ll show you the data on whether you need to put more effort into your SEO strategy. You’ll also identify which pages on your website get more traffic.

Mainly, it’ll let you know if your keywords influenced the ranking. You’ll also learn about user interactions and their impact on your business.

5. Bounce and exit rate

Bounce is when a user visits your page and leaves without visiting other pages. This metric helps you understand the quality of your content and website. However, keep in mind that the bounce rate doesn’t mean your website quality is poor.

For instance, if a user visits your website but doesn’t do anything. Instead, the person went to one of your physical shops to buy the items you’re selling online. This is still a successful conversion of users.

On the other hand, your exit rate is when a user visits your website, takes action, and leaves. The most common reason is the user already got what they wanted. A perfect example is when a user just went to your website to get your branch’s contact information.

Use the return to SERP period to identify if the customer bounced. This is the time from when your page loads and the return of visitors. You’ll determine whether the user is still exploring your page or has already left.

6. Users

Understanding how the users interact with your website is vital.

Some users use different platforms to access your website.

For instance, a user may use a phone, tablet, or PC. However, if they have a specific ID, such as their login information, it’ll only count as one.

Related: How to identify your website visitors

When you consider this metric, you’ll be able to identify new leads and existing ones.

You can determine whether your retention rate is increasing or decreasing. You can adjust your content if you have a poor retention rate.

7. Conversions

This metric allows you to track if you’ve converted a visitor to your website.

Related: What is lead tracking and how to get started

Suppose the user did a specific action, such as downloading e-books, purchasing on your online store, subscribing to your mailing list, signing up for events, and more.

They might not be converted to direct revenue right away. However, they can be nurtured and become sales in the future.

This creates an opportunity to build more compelling content that will encourage users to turn into sales.

Remember that something is wrong if you cannot convert them. You’ll need to create an efficient SEO strategy. You might need to check the technical aspects of your website, such as the loading speed.

Pro Tip

Don’t forget, Ruler gives you a granular view of customer journeys for individual conversions and leads. Learn more on how Ruler attributes leads and marketing-generated revenue across multiple campaigns, ads, keywords and more.

Track where your leads came from with Ruler


Are you better prepared to track SEO performance?

You must set and monitor KPIs to ensure success in your SEO strategies. 

These indicators will help you find ways in which areas you should improve. You may need to update your content or create ads to grow traffic.

 It’ll also help you convert more users into sales and increase your retention rate.

So, if you want to measure your SEO in 2023 and the years to come, ensure that you understand the main KPIs for your SEO strategy.


Jim Hughes has significant experience covering financial and business topics. He also worked as a financial advisor at a bank and provided consulting and advice about budgets, savings, insurance, stocks, retirement funds, tax advice, etc. At the moment he is the Director of Content at OpenCashAdvance.com